Grantham Mayo Van Otterloo & Co. LLC Acquires 99,660 Shares of Microsoft Corporation $MSFT

Grantham Mayo Van Otterloo & Co. LLC boosted its holdings in Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) by 2.1% in the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 4,959,599 shares of the software giant’s stock after purchasing an additional 99,660 shares during the quarter. Microsoft accounts for about 7.2% of Grantham Mayo Van Otterloo & Co. LLC’s portfolio, making the stock its largest holding. Grantham Mayo Van Otterloo & Co. LLC owned approximately 0.07% of Microsoft worth $2,568,825,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of MSFT. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Microsoft by 2.0% in the second quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 705,077,786 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $350,712,742,000 after buying an additional 13,691,572 shares during the period. State Street Corp increased its stake in Microsoft by 1.1% during the 2nd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 299,196,519 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $148,823,341,000 after acquiring an additional 3,166,275 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its stake in Microsoft by 2.0% during the 2nd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 179,001,751 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $88,714,256,000 after acquiring an additional 3,532,054 shares during the period. Norges Bank acquired a new position in Microsoft in the 2nd quarter valued at $50,493,678,000. Finally, Northern Trust Corp raised its holdings in Microsoft by 16.1% in the 4th quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 83,787,746 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $35,316,535,000 after acquiring an additional 11,600,470 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 71.13% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several analysts have recently issued reports on the company. Rothschild & Co Redburn set a $450.00 target price on Microsoft in a report on Wednesday, January 21st. Stifel Nicolaus reissued a “hold” rating and issued a $392.00 price objective (down from $540.00) on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Thursday, February 5th. Guggenheim restated a “buy” rating and issued a $586.00 target price on shares of Microsoft in a research report on Thursday, January 22nd. Daiwa Securities Group lowered their price target on shares of Microsoft from $630.00 to $600.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, February 4th. Finally, Oppenheimer reiterated an “outperform” rating on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Thursday, January 29th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, forty have issued a Buy rating and four have issued a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Microsoft presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $591.95.

Insider Activity

In other Microsoft news, EVP Kathleen T. Hogan sold 12,321 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, March 6th. The stock was sold at an average price of $409.52, for a total value of $5,045,695.92. Following the sale, the executive vice president owned 137,933 shares in the company, valued at approximately $56,486,322.16. The trade was a 8.20% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, Director John W. Stanton purchased 5,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 18th. The stock was bought at an average cost of $397.35 per share, with a total value of $1,986,750.00. Following the purchase, the director owned 83,905 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $33,339,651.75. This trade represents a 6.34% increase in their position. Additional details regarding this purchase are available in the official SEC disclosure. 0.03% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Microsoft Trading Down 0.7%

Shares of NASDAQ MSFT opened at $401.86 on Friday. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $429.01 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $476.96. The stock has a market cap of $2.98 trillion, a P/E ratio of 25.13, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.58 and a beta of 1.10. Microsoft Corporation has a 52-week low of $344.79 and a 52-week high of $555.45. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.09, a quick ratio of 1.38 and a current ratio of 1.39.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, January 28th. The software giant reported $4.14 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.86 by $0.28. Microsoft had a net margin of 39.04% and a return on equity of 32.34%. The company had revenue of $81.27 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $80.28 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $3.23 earnings per share. Microsoft’s revenue was up 16.7% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Microsoft Corporation will post 13.08 EPS for the current year.

Microsoft Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, June 11th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, May 21st will be issued a dividend of $0.91 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, May 21st. This represents a $3.64 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.9%. Microsoft’s payout ratio is presently 22.76%.

Key Headlines Impacting Microsoft

Here are the key news stories impacting Microsoft this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Sell‑side support remains strong — several firms have reiterated buys/outperform and bullish price targets, which underpins long‑term investor confidence. William Blair reiterates Outperform on Microsoft
• Positive Sentiment: Product/AI momentum — Microsoft is rolling out Copilot Health, agentic Copilot features across Office apps, and the new Microsoft 365 E7 AI bundle (adds Anthropic Claude Cowork, Agent 365, Entra), all of which support higher‑value commercial monetization and stickier cloud revenue. Copilot Health paves path to medical superintelligence
• Positive Sentiment: Social and trader sentiment is highlighting agentic Copilot and AI infrastructure leadership as reasons for near‑term support and potential upside if resistance breaks. Quiver Quant summary of Agentic Copilot buzz
• Neutral Sentiment: Xbox roadmap and gaming hardware (Project Helix prototypes to developers in 2027) bolster long‑term diversification but have limited near‑term revenue impact. CNBC on Project Helix
• Neutral Sentiment: Analyst price targets remain elevated (median targets well above current levels) and institutional positioning is mixed — supportive for a medium‑term recovery but not an immediate catalyst. Zacks on analyst views
• Negative Sentiment: High and rising capital expenditures for AI data centers are a near‑term earnings headwind; investor letters and coverage flag capex intensity as a reason MSFT has underperformed peers despite strong top‑line growth. InsiderMonkey on data center capex concerns
• Negative Sentiment: Leadership change — Rajesh Jha, a senior exec tied to Office/Copilot rollouts, is retiring; markets tend to discount execution risk when key product leaders depart. Reuters on Rajesh Jha retirement
• Negative Sentiment: Regulatory/political risk — Microsoft’s public support for Anthropic in its legal fight with the Pentagon raises short‑term uncertainty around government contracting and could create customer/contract exposure. FT: Microsoft backs Anthropic vs Pentagon
• Negative Sentiment: Macro and market‑structure risk — rotation out of megacap tech and warnings about midterm‑year volatility are pressuring MSFT along with peers. Technical support levels around the recent pullback are being watched by traders. MarketBeat mid‑March market warning

Microsoft Company Profile

Microsoft Corporation is a global technology company headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen, Microsoft develops, licenses and supports a broad range of software products, services and devices for consumers, enterprises and governments worldwide. Its operations span personal computing, productivity software, cloud infrastructure, enterprise applications, developer tools and gaming.

Microsoft’s product portfolio includes the Windows operating system and the Microsoft 365 suite of productivity and collaboration tools (Office apps, Outlook, Teams).